The title of
this talk is “My Aunt, Jane Austen.”Yet
I feel a little possessive in designating her so.For one thing, in this room there are my two daughters and my
sister, all
of whom are equally entitled to say, “my Aunt, Jane Austen.”For another, don’t we all, especially those assembled here –
with
possibly one exception – feel that she belongs to each of us?Don’t we each feel that if not actually a family relation, she
is at
least a spiritual aunt, a person one would love to have known, a person
wiser,
and perhaps more sanctified than we are, ourselves.That at least is the view that has been held by many people for
many
years.Now, among modern critics
and biographers – who knows from what motives of profit, publicity or
academic
advancement – it has become fashionable to besmirch and denigrate the
character of our hitherto irreproachable Jane.

Katherine Mansfield, I think, has best described
the feelings of those who love Jane Austen.She says, “For the truth is that every true admirer of the
novels
cherishes the happy thought that he alone – reading between the lines –
has
become the secret friend of their author.”In my opinion this exactly depicts the relationship between Jane
Austen
and her reader.It’s a special
relationship that I don’t believe subsists with any other writer.I think this idea that one knows her intimately, as a person,
may account
for the almost inexhaustible curiosity that has ever been felt about
every
aspect of her private life.

I am going to talk chiefly about the
family and
the Austen-Leighs and their relationship, over the past century, with
Jane
Austen.

“I have always maintained the
importance of
aunts,” wrote Jane in 1815 to her niece Caroline.Caroline,
aged ten, had just herself become an aunt on the
birth of a child to her sister, Anna Lefroy.

For us, in the Austen family, to
maintain the
importance of our most important aunt, has been the pleasure of
successive
generations.In fact one might
almost say that Aunt Jane has been to us what the Baronetage was to Sir
Walter
Elliot:“Occupation in an idle
hour and consolation in a distressed one.”

In fact the Austen-Leighs have been
inclined to
call their houses by such names as Sanditon, or Hartfield.Also certain traditions have been observed.A letter of thanks, for example, has always been a “collins.”Many years ago this custom annoyed a brash young Austen-Leigh
from the
colonies, who, on being required to write such a letter, pettishly
questioned
whether the word was in the dictionary.It
is.

Virginia Woolf wrote in one of her
essays:

In many ways Jane
Austen must be considered singularly
blessed. The manner in which from
generation to generation her descendants respect her memory is, we
imagine,
precisely that which she would have chosen for herself…

I
like those words, “respect her memory.”We who read her books and who delight in her finer characters,
in the
integrity of Mr. Knightley, in the honesty of Elizabeth Bennet, in the
unselfish
gentleness of Anne Elliot, do we not admit that only a superior human
being who
understands these virtues, herself, would be capable of creating such
people?Could, for example, an author who describes Emma’s patience and
unselfishness towards Mr. Woodhouse, not in real life have shown the
same
forebearance in dealing with her own mother?

Supposing
any of us were to appear as a character
in one of her novels, would our behaviour, our motives, and our
attitude to
others be beyond reproach?It’s a
sobering thought.

Lord
David Cecil in his 1935 Leslie Stephen
lecture has put these feelings delightfully:

I
were in doubt as to the wisdom of one of my actions, I should not
consult
Flaubert or Dostoyevsky. The
(opinions) of Balzac or Dickens would carry little weight with me: were
Stendahl
to rebuke me, it would only convince me I had done right: even in the
judgement
of Tolstoy I should not put complete confidence. But I should be seriously upset, I should worry for weeks and
weeks if I
incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen.

For those who may not know it, I
should perhaps
elucidate my own exact connection with Aunt Jane.

Although the years are many, the
generations are
few.James Edward Austen-Leigh, son
of Jane’s eldest brother, James, is my great grand-father, which makes
Jane my
three times great-aunt.

R.W. Chapman, the doyen
of all Austen scholars, speaking of trying to understand the family
ramifications, writes:

The task is not easy: for the Austens
and their
relations by marriage were numerous and prolific; and their historian,
labouring
to be lucid, is embarassed by their tendency to marry twice, and to
change and
amplify their surnames.

He refers, of course, to James’s son,
James
Edward, always called Edward, who later in life became Austen-Leigh.He was the favorite nephew of his aunt, and author of TheMemoir,
the only biography of Jane Austen by one who knew her.Chapman also refers to Jane’s brother, another Edward Austen,
who, in
middle age, took the name of Knight (his eleven children, of course,
having to
follow suit).Of this event, Jane
wrote, “I must learn to make a better ‘K’.”Four of Jane’s brothers married twice.And three of her sisters-in-law died in childbirth, two after
the
delivery of their eleventh child.So
much for family statistics.There’s
no doubt, with such prolific brothers, and so many descendants, that
there are
multitudinous numbers of people in the world who are genuinely entitled
to call
Jane Austen, “aunt.”Whether
they care to avail themselves of that distinction, I don’t know.For example, one of the Knights, emigrated to New Zealand and
like Bach
had twenty-one children.I wonder
if those distant people, farmers, perhaps, on some green mountain
slope, are
aware of their heritage?Because
the fact remains that there are more people in the world who have never
heard of
Jane Austen than there are those who rejoice in her.I’m sure that every member of this society has had the
experience, probably many times, of having to explain to some
philistine, and
not necessarily an uneducated philistine either, just who this woman is.

Although Jane had six brothers, four
of whom
between them produced over thirty nieces and nephews, it is to the
descendants
of James, the Austen-Leighs, that the maintenance of her importance has
chiefly
fallen.They were the scholars and
the writers.The other brothers had
various occupations and professions – sailor, banker, parson, country
gentleman – none of them especially literary.

Two books only were contributed by
other branches
of the family.Lord Brabourne’s Lettersof Jane Austen – thefirst such volume to appear – was
published in 1884, fourteen years after the Memoir. Lord
Brabourne was the son of Jane’s niece, Fanny Knight, and the ancestor
of the
present Lord Brabourne who married Patricia, daughter of Lord Louis
Mountbatten.This present John Brabourne is the producer of many famous
films,
including PassagetoIndia and MurderontheOrientExpress. He,
too, is entitled to call Jane Austen aunt, by how many greats, I
haven’t
counted.The second book is JaneAusten’sSailorBrothers by J.H. and Edith Hubback.This appeared in 1906.J.H.
Hubback was a grandson of Sir Francis Austen.

Aside from these, then, all the
primary
biographical works have been written by Austen-Leighs.And now perhaps I should say a word about James Edward, founder
of the
family.

Like his uncle Edward, he did not
change his name
until he was nearly forty.Furthermore,
as I have mentioned, he was always known as Edward, you can see how the
confusion arises.Our Edward had a
unique bond with his aunt: both had been born and lived the first
twenty-five
years of their lives at Steventon Rectory, for Edward’s father, James,
had
taken over the living when Mr. Austen retired to Bath.Later, when Jane moved to Chawton, Steventon was still
sufficiently near
for visiting.

Edward’s charm caused
him to be much loved in the family, and esteemed even by his headmaster.Dr. Gabell of Winchester – over whose garden, you will remember,
Jane
could look from the room where she lay during her last illness.But that is to anticipate.In
1814, when Edward was sixteen, Dr. Gabell wrote to James:

To the very favourable
reports which I have had the
pleasure of making to you from time to time on the conduct of your
excellent
son, I can add nothing.

It was while Edward was still at
school that he
was let in on the hitherto closely guarded secret – even from her own
nephews
and nieces – of Jane’s authorship.In
his surprise and delight he burst into verse:

To Miss
J. Austen

No words
can express, my dear Aunt, my surprise

Or make
you conceive how I opened my eyes,

Like a
pig Butcher Pile has just struck with his knife,

When I
heard for the very first time in my life

That I
have the honour to have a relation

Whose
works were dispersed through the whole of the
nation.

I assure
you, however, I’m terribly glad:

Oh dear,
just to think (and the thought drives me mad)

That
dear Mrs. Jennings’s good-natured strain,

Was
really the produce of your witty brain

That you made the
Middletons, Dashwoods and all,

And that
you (not young Ferrars) found out that a ball

May be
given in cottages never so small.

And
though Mr. Collins so grateful for all

Will
Lady de Bourgh his dear patroness call,

‘Tis to
your ingenuity really he owed

His living, his wife,
and his humble abode.

This news of their aunt’s success,
encouraged both
Edward and his sisters, Anna and Caroline, to attempt to write novels
also, and
to badger their ever-patient aunt for criticism and comment.It is in a letter to Edward that the most famous description of
her own
work exists.She had received news
that a portion of the story he was writing had been lost,

…two
chapters & a half to be missing is monstrous!It
is well that I have not been at Steventon lately, &
therefore cannot be suspected of purloining them: – two strong twigs
& a
half towards a Nest of my own, would have been something. – I do not
think
however that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to me.What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches,
full of
Variety and Glow? – How could I possibly join them on to the little bit
(two
inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces
little
effect after much labour?

Time passed.Edward left Winchester and went up to Oxford.When he was home at Steventon he visited Chawton, and the
mutual affection and regard between nephew and aunt increased with
every visit.Jane wrote to a friend,

[Edward]
grows still, and still improves in appearance,
at least in the estimation of his aunts, who love him better and
better, as they
see the sweet temper and warm affections of the boy confirmed in the
young
man…

And in another letter:

We were
quite happy to see Edward, it was an unexpected
pleasure, & he makes himself as agreable as ever, sitting in such a
quiet
comfortable way making his delightful little Sketches…

How could the
boy sitting in his aunt’s parlour
have known that half a century later he would be called upon to compose
her
biography?Describing those distant
days he wrote,“Though in the
course of fifty years I have forgotten much, I have not forgotten that
Aunt Jane
was the delight of all her nephews and nieces.We did not think of her as being clever, still less as being
famous: but
we valued her as one always kind, sympathising and amusing.”He continues, “Her talents did not introduce her to the notice
of other
writers, or connect her with the literary world, or in any degree
pierce through
the obscurity of her domestic retirement.”

In fact Jane
never met other authors; her
publisher, John Murray, “a civil rogue” she called him, never offered
to
entertain her or to introduce her to society.Unlike Charlotte Brontë, Fanny Burney, and Mrs. Gaskell, she
remained
quite unknown in any smart London circles.

On 18 July
1817 Jane Austen died.She was followed soon after by Edward’s father, it is believed
of the
same disease (Addison’s).Edward
took orders, much to the chagrin of his rich, childless great aunt,
Jane Leigh Perrot, who had as powerful a dislike to the profession ofclergyman as did Mary Crawford.

The aunt may have
frowned, but fortune smiled, on the handsome, clever, talented young
man.In 1828 he married Emma Smith, sister of Sir Charles Smith of
Suttons,
and niece of Mrs. Chute of the Vine.The
Chutes were neighbours, and the Austens had often hunted with Mr.
Chute’s
Hounds.

Emma Smith

Hearing of this good match, Mrs. Leigh
Perrot,
ever a snob, forgave Edward for being a clergyman and settled on him an
allowance during her lifetime.

Now we come to how he took the name of
Leigh.

Leigh was the maiden name of Mrs.
Austen,
Jane’s mother.It was a
distinguished name.Ancestors had
included a Lord Mayor of London and a master of Balliol College, Oxford.She was also connected with the Lords Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey.Mrs. Austen’s brother, James Leigh, had added the name Perrot on
inheriting an estate.He died,
leaving his redoubtable wife, “my aunt” to Jane and Cassandra, in sole
control of his fortune.It was a
great blow to the Austens.They
were poor and like Miss Bates must become poorer.They had counted on this eventual inheritance.Mrs. Leigh Perrot had always been quite the unfavourite person
in the
Austen family.An example of their
opinion exists in a letter from Jane to Cassandra describing a letter
received
by Mrs. Austen:

in spite
of all my Mother’s long and intimate
knowledge of the writer, she was not up to the expectation of such a
letter as
this; the discontentedness of it shocked and surprised her – but I see
nothing
in it out of nature – tho’ a sad nature.

She may have had a sad nature – but
her husband
had been devoted to her and now, having left her his estate, she was
mistress of
a very pretty property, Scarlets, near Hare Hatch in Berkshire.Since the Leigh Perrots were childless, and since the money had
come from
her husband, one might conclude that in all justice it should be
returned to his
family on her death.But this could
by no means be counted on.She was
capricious and difficult, and frequently changed her will, threatening
at
various times to leave Scarlets to this person or that.There was a real danger she might leave the family estate to one
of her
Chomeley relations.To forestall
such a possibility both Francis Austen and Edward prudently named sons, Chomeley,
Mrs. Leigh Perrot’s maiden name.

To digress for a moment, most of you
will
remember that in 1800 this unpopular woman had stood trial for
shop-lifting in
Bath.She was accused of stealing a
card of lace.In those days the
punishment for such a crime was hanging or transportation to Australia.After spending seven months in gaol, her trial finally took
place.It was attended by a thousand people and lasted seven hours.Although she was acquitted, the verdict is
still debatable.

In 1837 Mrs. Leigh Perrot died.She was 92 and had survived her husband by twenty years.She left Edward Scarlets and part of her fortune on condition
that he
took the name and arms of Leigh.A
testimony to that obligation still exists at Scarlets, where I have
myself seen
the Leigh and Austen coats of arms incorporated, together with the
date, in a
window over the staircase.The
handsome, charming, Georgian Edward was now being transmogrified into a
Victorian clergyman, the father of a large family, eight sons and two
daughters.In the evenings he used to read aloud to his children from the
works of
Jane Austen and Walter Scott.

His daughter, Mary Austen-Leigh, in a
memoir of
her father, recalls:

Jane Austen’s books
appeared to us then, and for a
long time afterwards, to be a family and almost a private possession. Our father looked upon it as an accepted fact that to enjoy them
required
a mind of a peculiar order, and that it was not to be expected that she
would
ever become a great favourite with the general public…. When in the
course of
time, we heard of certain other families who knew and cared for [her]
as we did,
it came as a surprise, and made us feel that, if we could but meet, we
must be
friends on the strength of it.

During Edward’s lifetime, only one new
edition of
Jane’s works had been published (compared to untold numbers of Walter
Scott’s) and it seemed as if her reputation, slight as it had been,
might fade
and wither away entirely.But the
enthusiasm of a vast, swelling multitude of new readers would not be
denied.

When one assesses this – only one new
edition
in fifty years, and thinks how few, in numbers, the actual copies in
circulation
must have been – when one considers that there was no promotion, no
advertising, just word of mouth and the sharing of treasured books
handed round
among friends – it is almost miraculous that her works should have
survived.Now a clamorous public was demanding that details of her life be
revealed.All that her admirers had
hitherto been permitted to know was printed in the Biographical Notice
written
by Henry Austen and published in NorthangerAbbey in1818.This notice, although over ornate in style, does contain one or
two
memorable phrases, that for example the claim, with which everyone here
would
agree, that “we shall never look upon her like again.”

But her devoted readers
wanted more.At the age of
seventy-two, Edward was urged to transcribe his recollections of his
aunt.He was not at all willing.He
declared he was not in the habit of writing for publication.Yet he had habitually composed fifty sermons a year, and in 1865
had
published RecollectionsoftheEarlyDaysoftheVineHunt. Finally
he was obliged to acknowledge that: “However little I have to tell,
there is
no one else who could tell as much of her.”

If he had not made the
attempt to recall and revive a life by such a period of time
obliterated; if he
had not by his example inspired his son, William, and grandson,
Richard; his
sister, Caroline, and his daughter, Mary, to still further exertions,
it is
likely that our sole source of information would be the surviving
letters –
those that Cassandra did not destroy.

Also, were the Memoir merely a
family
recollection, such as senior citizens today are encouraged at
Elderhostels to
write for their grandchildren, it might now are found only in some
dusty
archives.But the style is so
felicitous, that it is still in print today, and two new editions are,
or have
been, published this year.

In my possibly proud and prejudiced
opinion, the
opening sentence is as remarkable in its way as that ofEmma,
or
of AnnaKarenina:

More than half a
century has passed away since I, the
youngest of the mourners, attended the funeral of my dear aunt Jane in
Winchester Cathedral; and now in my old age I am asked if my memory
will serve
to rescue from oblivion any events of her life or any traits of her
character to
satisfy the enquiries of a generation of readers who have been born
since she
died.

To Edward’s surprise, TheMemoirof
Jane Austen was soon sold out, and a second edition was required.This second edition caused an unforeseen difficulty.In it, Edward included LadySusan and TheWatsons,
to which, according to Chapman, he had himself assigned the titles.A portion of Sanditon was also printed.But the publisher actually issued the volume under the title
“Lady
Susan,” as Chapman acutely observes, by “inadvertence or cunning.”This caused Edward great distress.His
daughter, Mary, reports, “he foresaw the disappointment of its readers
when
they should discover the nature and brevity of the story, [LadySusan]
and still more did he feel to put forward, as though on a par with her
other
works a character sketch which she never intended to give to the world
would not
appear [and thinking of Virginia Woolf, I should like to emphasize,
this part] tobe showingduerespecttothememoryandjudgementofhisaunt.”In fact Edward felt it necessary to state a disclaimer in the
notice he
wrote prior to its publication.“If
it should be judged unworthy of the publicity now given it, the censure
must
fall on him who has put it forth and not on her who kept it locked up
in her
desk.”

There was a further correspondence,
too, with
regard to the second edition, which has recently come to light through
the
researches of the scholar, Deirdre Le Faye.Lord Stanhope, a politician, historian and literary person, was
a great
admirer of Jane Austen’s novels, and had been in correspondence with
the
publisher, Bentley, regarding the verses which Henry Austen had
referred to in
the Biographical Notice as, “replete with fancy and vigour.”This was the piece called “Winchester Races” which Jane had
composed
three days before her death.Lord Stanhope
could not understand why these had not been
published, in the first instance in the first edition of TheMemoir,
and now, when he received from Bentley a copy of the second, he was
disappointed
again.Why were they omitted?Surely they could not have been lost?Were they perhaps irreligious, he asked?

A lively exchange of letters took
place.Copies of Lord Stanhope’s to Bentley being sent on to Edward,
who in
turn sent them to his sisters.The
reason the verses had been left out was that Edward and Caroline
considered them
too frivolous, not at all suitable as the work of a devout Christian on
the
solemn occasion of her death bed.To
include them would be, in Caroline’s words, “A sad incongruity.”She wrote to Edward:

…I
am rather sorry that Lord. S. should be raising a
hue & cry after these “lines, replete with vigour and fancy” to
which
unluckily Uncle Henry alluded more than half a Century ago – Nobody
felt any
curiosity about them then – but see what it is to have a
growing
posthumous reputation! we cannot keep anything to ourselves now, it
seems.

I like that… “cannot keep anything to
ourselves….”Indeed we cannot.With regard to Jane Austen the public is a veritable Miss Steele“… not without hopes of finding out… how much her washing cost
per
week, and how much she had every year to spend upon herself.”

The verses, incidentally, were not
published for
another thirty years.They appeared
in TheSailorBrothers in 1906.Poor Lord Stanhope, who died in 1875, never saw them.

As I have mentioned, in the next
generation,
Edward’s children and grandchildren also took a literary interest in
their
aunt.Jane Austen’s writing desk,
which is now in my possession, was left to William and Mary
Austen-Leigh by
their great-aunt Cassandra.William
together with his nephew, Richard, son of Chomeley Austen-Leigh, wrote
the
definitive Lifeand LettersofJaneAusten,
on which all subsequent biographies are, or should be based.This appeared in 1912.In
1961, an obituary of Richard, remarks, “nor can we forget his works on
his
relative, Jane Austen, which laid the foundations of modern Janian
scholarship,
before the days of R.W. Chapman, who referred to his unrivalled
knowledge of
Jane Austen’s life and surroundings.”

Mary Austen-Leigh wrote, in 1920, at
the age of
82, PersonalAspects of JaneAusten published
by Jane’s
own publisher, John Murray.It is
not a work to be taken very seriously though Caroline’s reminiscences,
which
are included, are invaluable.Of
this work Katherine Mansfield said: “It seems almost unkind to
criticize a
little book which has thrown on bonnet and shawl and tripped across the
fields
of criticism at so round a pace to defend its dear Jane Austen.”

A few years ago, I came across an
amusing example
of Mary’s niece-ly defence of her aunt, again, to use Virginia Woolf’s
words, “respecting her memory”.It
is in a handwritten note at the back of my own copy of the Life andLetters
which had originally belonged to Mary Austen-Leigh, and which had been
given to
her by her brother, the author, William, with whom, I might say, she
shared a
house at Roehampton, called “Hartfield.”

The bibliography lists a work, JaneAusten:acriticismandAppreciation byPercyFitzgerald,
and states that the frontispiece is a reproduction of a bust of Jane
Austen
executed by Mr. Fitzgerald.In
Mary’s indignant hand is written, “From his own imagination only!”

A little detective work among the
files of the
London Times enabled me to uncover the story.I found that Percy Fitzgerald, an eccentric author and
sculptor, much addicted to donating his works to whomever he could
prevail upon
to accept them, had presented a bust of Jane Austen to the Pump Room at
Bath.The occasion had been marked with suitable pomp and
circumstance,
speeches by the mayor and dignitaries.But
they made a grave error.They
failed to consult the keepers of the flame, William and Mary
Austen-Leigh.

It is amusing to imagine the rage of
the brother
and sister when they read an account of this affair in the Times
next
morning at breakfast.

They sallied forth, rather like Lady
Catherine to
scold the mayor and Council, not into harmony and plenty, but into
having the
bust removed.

By great good fortune I found a
photograph of the
offending object at the University of British Columbia. The bust is
labelled
Jane Austin, her name spelled wrong for a start.The person depicted has an enormous nose and a vulgar leer,
rather like
that of a procuress enticing custom to her house.No wonder the brother and sister were outraged.I think any of us would have been also.Mary’s
note continues:

[The
bust] was placed, according to his wish in the
Pumproom, opposite a bust of Dickens, also executed by Mr. Fitzgerald.No intimation of this intended proceeding had been made to the
Austen-Leigh family, nor was any member of it invited to the ceremony
of
unveiling the bust.When in a few
days time, the bust was seen by William Austen-Leigh and his sister
Mary A.
Austen-Leigh and was found to be of a most unworthy nature and to bear
no
resemblance to Jane Austen they requested the Mayor have it removed. After
some delay this was done, and a bust of Garrick now takes its place.

Hapless Percy Fitzgerald!He was no match for the Austen-Leighs.The bust of Garrick, by the way, had been previously offered to
the City
of London and declined.What became
of the bust of Jane Austen, history does not relate.

And so in each generation members of
the
Austen-Leigh family have cherished and preserved the memory of our aunt.I have done my own bit, I imagine, in founding with Jack Grey
and Harry
Burke, this society, which now has over 2,000 members.The idea, however, was not ours, but that of my husband, Denis
Mason
Hurley.

I must conclude by remarking that
James Edward
Austen-Leigh had, with all his virtues, one grave defect.He considered Walter Scott “a greater artist than my aunt.”For this, one can hardly forgive him, and yet, historically, it
is not
surprising.The Victorians
preferred Scott and Dickens. Romantic stories of lovers, villains and
death-bed
scenes.Many people still do.Jane Austen remains caviar to the general.We, in this room, know that.